lordmandeep
Banned
true and its hard not to drive fast.
There are no lights for many miles and the roads are nice and smooth and straight.
There are no lights for many miles and the roads are nice and smooth and straight.
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Highway 401: Proposed Province-Wide Widening
- Thread starter Mooreton
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
Cruise-control ... reduces the urge to go faster. And certainly cuts down on the number of speeding tickets!
kEiThZ
Superstar
Meh, we could use some higher speed limits.... Darwin will handle the careless and inattentive drivers....
khris
Senior Member
And the innocent people who are affected by those idiots?
nfitz
Superstar
If we had a higher speed limit - say 120, and tighter enforcement, say tickets at 10 km/hr over (it's unusual to be ticketed for less than 125 ... 25 km/hr over, and perhaps even 130), then you'd have all the traffic moving from about 120 to 130, rather than the current 100 to 135.
Surely that would be safer.
Surely that would be safer.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Like innocents aren't killed for anybody else's mistakes in society. Are we to hold up progress in its entirety for fear that someone might get hurt? Don't folks get killed now by poor drivers? Additionally, we are also ignoring other effects from higher limits. More attentive and disciplined drivers (induced at that speed), and the removal of slow seniors might actually reduce casualties. Moreover, our speed limit in miles used to be 70. However, bureaucratic math let that equal 100 km/h.
Exactly. Sadly, the province does not understand that.
I love the 'speed kills' argument. So every accident where someone was 1 kph over the limit was a result of speeding? If you look at the province's stats that's how they count it. Yet they never get to the logical end of that line of though, set the speed limit at 60 or less everywhere, so that we have speed killing fewer people. Better yet, don't let anyone drive....
lordmandeep
Banned
Yeah came back from Quebec City on Sunday and everything was fine until we hit Coberg. Actually about 10 km before it become 6 lanes it really got busy.
It was quite and all of sudden you enter the great beast called the GTA...
Even with 8,10,12 lanes each way near Whitby, the traffic is really busy in the area.
It was quite and all of sudden you enter the great beast called the GTA...
Even with 8,10,12 lanes each way near Whitby, the traffic is really busy in the area.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
Well, you know the "adding lanes to relieve congestion" idea kind of follows Jevons Paradox...
lordmandeep
Banned
Debate over expanding 6 lane sections to 8 or 10 is debatable and most likley we could have the 401 over 20 lanes through the city, it would not make a difference
However 4 lane roads are not safe at all with all that traffic especially in the stretch between Woodstock and KW....
Your Paradox is right as traffic near the place where the 6 lane ends near Coberg is as worse as it was when there was 4 lanes. However it is much safer.
However 4 lane roads are not safe at all with all that traffic especially in the stretch between Woodstock and KW....
Your Paradox is right as traffic near the place where the 6 lane ends near Coberg is as worse as it was when there was 4 lanes. However it is much safer.
DavidH
Senior Member
Well, speed does kill in that E=1/2*m*v^2 very much applies. A collision with a nonmoving object at 125 km/h has 50% more kinetic energy that a collision at 100 km/h does.
Of course, many collisions are between vehicles moving at roughly the same speed and involving much lower energies so long as a loss of control does not produce a secondary collision with other objects. This is routinely ignored, as is the probability of having a collision. If we can reduce the discrepancies in vehicle speed, the energies involved in non-head on multiple vehicle collisions will go down, and the probability of such collisions occurring in the first place will also go down.
It's been amply proven that drivers drive at the vehicles they feel the roads are safe at. This is why the most effective traffic calmers have been techniques that make drivers feel less safe (e.g. removal of signs, traffic circles, etc). We have provincial highways that were designed for speeds of 120-130 km/h, often for vehicles much less capable than what many people are driving today, so it's no surprise that that is what people do, in the absence of sufficent enforcement to hold speeds down.
while extreme speeds should certainly be cracked down on (idiots racing at 150-160 km/h while everyone else is doing 120 km/h), we also equally need to crack down on people who are not keeping up with the traffic flow, and we need to generally reduce the variation. Increasing the posted speed limit may actually accomplish this, and it could certainly be conducted as a controlled and time-limited trial on a highway like the 407.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
Yeah, but there are some cases where it does help. Development restrictions and greenbelts are much more effective ways to reduce sprawl without the economic cost of highway congestion. When the highway from Toronto to Kitchener was four lanes, there were routinely massive traffic jams all the way to Cambridge. With six lanes, they've been unheard of west of Milton for over a decade. There are also obvious nonsensical bottlenecks, like the 401 west of the 410, that should be widened. Mind you, I'm obviously not in favour of new freeways through the city or megaprojects to widen the 401 through the city, for example. I prefer the European model of sensible highway investments and high-quality transit.
lordmandeep
Banned
I know I am not talking about building massive gigantic highways into Toronto.
Go to Europe they have highways connecting their cities in all directions.
Go to Europe they have highways connecting their cities in all directions.
lead82
Senior Member
Canada is a third world country when it comes to transportation infrastructure. What makes it worse is that we are such a huge country with very poor infrastructure. We lack highways connecting cities to each other.
Toronto has 1 true highway heading north (400), one east (401), two west (QEW and 401). The other highway are just to get one around the city or connect suburbs to the city (404/DVP, 403, 410, 427, Gardiner).
It's sad that we don't have another highway north to cottage country (404 extension to North Bay?) . What about a highway to ski/beach country (Collingwood/Blue Mountain) via 410 extension?
The list could go on. Transit is horribly inadequate and continues to lag. Our intra-city train service is a joke, as is our subway system.
Problem with Canada is politics and it's the dumb political system that's killing any sensible progress in getting on with the job of building infrastructure.
Why does it take 20 years to build anything in Canada when other countries can do it in a quarter of the time?
Toronto has 1 true highway heading north (400), one east (401), two west (QEW and 401). The other highway are just to get one around the city or connect suburbs to the city (404/DVP, 403, 410, 427, Gardiner).
It's sad that we don't have another highway north to cottage country (404 extension to North Bay?) . What about a highway to ski/beach country (Collingwood/Blue Mountain) via 410 extension?
The list could go on. Transit is horribly inadequate and continues to lag. Our intra-city train service is a joke, as is our subway system.
Problem with Canada is politics and it's the dumb political system that's killing any sensible progress in getting on with the job of building infrastructure.
Why does it take 20 years to build anything in Canada when other countries can do it in a quarter of the time?
lordmandeep
Banned
It appears we just build one path and just fit as much as we can on their.
How else do you explain how the 401 become the busiest and one of the widest highways in the world.
Like in the States you see wide highways but there are small stretches like 5-10 km and mostly between connecting highways.
How else do you explain how the 401 become the busiest and one of the widest highways in the world.
Like in the States you see wide highways but there are small stretches like 5-10 km and mostly between connecting highways.
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nfitz
Superstar
Having lived in third-world countries, I find this statement utterly mind-boggling. Can you give some examples to support your position?